


if i'm old enough to die for your mistakes (then let's go)

by InsertLogin



Series: they're teaching me to kill (who's teaching me to love?) [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Discussions of Child Death (nothing graphic), Gen, Mail Courier!Zuko, Mentions of Animal Death (though technically none of it actually occurs), last three characters along with Lu Ten are essentially just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25684177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertLogin/pseuds/InsertLogin
Summary: For Ozai's insult, Zuko, his firstborn and only son, was to die. Not in a quick way and not in an easy way. Lu Ten's death, after all, had not been quick or easy.Zuko was to die on the frontlines of the war. Ozai would surely understand Iroh's grief then.
Series: they're teaching me to kill (who's teaching me to love?) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862509
Comments: 27
Kudos: 229





	if i'm old enough to die for your mistakes (then let's go)

**Author's Note:**

> Just going to put this as a disclaimer to all my ATLA fics I guess, but I haven't actually watched ATLA. Blame tumblr for me learning about it and music for this idea coming up. 
> 
> Also, this may seem like a plothole, but in this fic, there are messages sent both by mail couriers and by hawks. Why have both/why couldn't only one exist? Well, mail couriers (in my mind) exist mainly to take larger messages and letters; like what the soldiers write to their families, or if a report needs to be delivered. In other cases, they may be sent if a hawk hasn't been trained to go to the location yet, or if the message is to be sent over potentially too dangerous territory (a courier can keep their tongue; a hawk cannot stop someone from sliding a message out). 
> 
> Anyways that's all I wanted to say and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Title comes from Gun. by MCR.

Azula always lied. That was just how Azula was. She always lied even when there was no reason to. So when she had come into Zuko’s room, gleefully telling him that Father was going to kill him, he hadn’t believed her. 

Zuko should have. He really should have. If he had then… well, he wasn’t sure what he would have done, but it wouldn’t have been kneeling in front of the Fire Lord with Father nearby having a strange mix between a smile and a glare on his face.

No one said anything and Zuko stayed kneeling. Only when Zuko’s knees started to ache did the Fire Lord finally speak. 

“From this moment onwards, Prince Zuko will be stripped of his title and from the records. For all intents and purposes, he will be dead.”

Zuko’s head snapped up and he knew that his mouth was gaping. He stared at Azulon, then at Father, and then back at Azulon, trying to see if this was a test of a sort, or their version of a prank, or anything that proved this wasn’t what it seemed like. 

Nothing was explained, and nothing came except for a hand that grabbed his upper arm and yanked him up. Zuko felt words bubbling up in some form of a protest. The words choked in his throat and he shot imploring looks to the Fire Lord and Father. Maybe that would be enough, and they would at least _say_ something.

Maybe, if they had even been _looking_ at him. That’s when Zuko’s breath began to run short, because they weren’t even paying attention, and the only one who seemed to acknowledge Zuko was there was the man that was dragging him so forcefully that Zuko stumbled over his feet. 

The man didn’t allow him to go to his rooms, even as Zuko asked—Azula would have called it begging but Zuko _wasn’t_ , he was just asking a bit desperately—to have just one keepsake, just one thing to keep him comforted. The man didn’t allow him that and didn’t even allow him to say goodbye. Zuko contemplated actually screaming now, but just as he opened his mouth, the man let go of him and shoved a set of plain and coarse clothes at him. 

“Go change,” the man said, gesturing to a side room. Zuko stared for a moment, opening his mouth slightly until the man scowled. 

Zuko hurried inside and changed. His arms and legs were shaking and he was making small noises in his throat, like that scream was trying to claw its way out. 

He managed to leave the room without collapsing. A servant took his old clothes and the hand was around his arm again. 

They did not go out to the front of the palace. There was a carriage in the back that Zuko was shoved into instead. 

Zuko realized then that they really were going to get rid of him. His stomach sank and he almost felt cold, which was preposterous because not only was he a firebender, but the weather was sweltering, even for the Fire Nation. 

Shuddering, Zuko looked at the small place where he would die and then, someone _else_ grabbed him. 

_This is it,_ he thought, feeling a strange mix between panicked and calm. Something yanked at his hair and Zuko clenched his jaw, screwing his eyes shut.

It took him a moment to realize he had not been killed. His hair had just been cut. It also took him a moment to realize he was still making those small noises. He tried to choke them off. 

“Meiling, what did you do?” another person asked. The person who had cut his hair let out a sigh, and Zuko figured she was Meiling. 

“I just cut his hair,” she said, irritated. 

“Sure.”

“That’s all I did,” she snapped. “Besides, even if I had hurt him, it’s nothing worse than what he’s going to get.”

That was when Zuko’s voice decided to work. “So is someone else going to kill me, then?”

Meiling and whoever the other person was went completely silent. 

“Well, give him the memo, then.” It was a different voice than Zuko had heard before. He wondered how many people were used for a simple act of death.

“Kid, what’s your name?” Meiling asked.

Zuko frowned. “Zuko.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said. Zuko opened his mouth but she glared at him. He shut it. “Your name is now Li. You have no family to speak of, and you don’t like to speak about your past. You’re a _quiet_ kid and you’re going to the mail courier between Fire Nation armies.”

“But—”

“What did I say about being quiet?”

Zuko shut his mouth again, his fists clenched. Words like _but I’m going to die there and it’s going to be terrifying_ and _but I don’t know how to carry mail_ and _but I don’t know how to lie well enough to be someone else_ and even _but I’m not even close to the enlistment age_ all played on his tongue, but he already knew that it didn’t matter. 

Azula always lied, unless the truth hurt worse. Maybe Father himself wasn’t going to kill him, but Zuko was guaranteed to die if he was at the front. 

It would be fitting after all. Lu Ten had been killed in battle. Perhaps it was even on purpose.

Zuko curled in on himself and did his best to hide. There wasn’t much else to do in the carriage. Meiling didn’t touch him, and neither she or the other two people up front spoke. 

As the carriage shuddered and rolled, Zuko’s eyes started to close. He, he realized, could sleep. Yes, sleep sounded good. Sleep meant that maybe when he woke, it would turn out that this had all been a dream. Sleep meant he didn’t have to think about what this or anything meant. 

Sleep didn’t come easily. 

He dreamed about the turtleducks. They were all quacking softly because their mother wasn’t there. 

_“How old is he, even?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

Zuko was desperately trying to calm them. He didn’t want to leave them, but this wouldn’t end until their mother came back. He needed to calm them down so he could get the mother back, and then everything would be okay again. The turtleducks would be happy and the pond could again be a place for Zuko to pretend that everything was just fine.

 _“He looks like he could be eight._ Eight _.”_

But the turtleducks weren’t calming down. They got louder and louder and soon enough, Zuko was screaming with them. 

_“I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”_

_“Show some emotion, maybe?”_

But it started to get quieter and Zuko swore there were fewer turtleducks than there were before. 

_“Well, I don’t like it either, but what can we do? Disobey the Fire Lord’s orders? Because I’m sure that will go just_ fine _.”_

The more and more Zuko started to pay attention, the more he realized that the turtleducks were disappearing. He didn’t know how—they kept disappearing and they disappeared in so many different ways and so quickly that he wondered if he wasn’t just hallucinating them—but they were _disappearing_ and _screaming_ now. 

_“Just because—”_

The scream wasn’t the sound of a turtleduck, though. It was Zuko’s own voice, screaming back at him. 

_“Can you two just shut it? There’s nothing we can do except make him wake up, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to deal with a snivelling kid.”_

There was only one turtleduck left now and it was crying, it was screaming, but there was no one around except for Zuko to hear. Zuko reached out—they liked it when he pet them, so maybe that would help at the very least—but his hand only went right through the turtleduck. 

Just like he was a ghost.

_“... Look at it this way, Cheng. The kid knows how to firebend. I heard he knows how to use swords a bit, too. He’s already more than equipped to deal with being a courier. He can defend himself.”_

He couldn’t make sound anymore. He couldn’t even touch the turtleduck. The only thing he could do was watch as something in the pond dragged it down until it drowned, until a cat leaped towards it and killed it, until it tried to fly but only fell and cracked its neck, until it died a thousand deaths and Zuko could only _watch_. 

_“Didn’t I tell you two to shut it?”_

Zuko fell into a dreamless sleep.

&&&

The kid kept quiet. He didn’t make any more pathetic whimpering sounds, and he just did whatever Cheng or Meiling or Lin told him to do. 

Lin almost liked the kid after the first day. He was a quick learner—once, he had reached for Lin’s hand and it only took Lin snatching his hand away for the kid to learn not to do it again—and he didn’t complain. Sure, he sometimes cried under the guise of trying not to cry, but he never said anything about it and managed to keep a straight face. 

Most of the time, at least.

“Do I get a weapon?” the kid had asked at a rest stop. It was the first time he had spoken in a few days and he was staring at the windows of a shop, where swords of all kinds were displayed. There was amazement and eager desire on his face. 

“You might get a knife,” Cheng said with a smile. Lin almost scowled. Cheng _knew_ by now that caring only made it hurt worse when they inevitably had to leave or when the kid inevitably died. “But not now.”

Cheng’s hand was out the tiniest bit, but the kid didn’t take it. The feeling on the kid’s face was gone and he didn’t look at another store. 

Like Lin said. A quick learner. 

After that stop, they got on a ship filled with other recruits and were stared at. It was of course the kid who singled them out, because while he had begun to look more like a commoner, his skin was still much too soft and his emotions were still too much on display. 

There was also the fact that he was a young kid.

“Is that what we’ve come to?” a man asked, looking at the kid with slight horror. Lin wondered why he found it so horrible that a kid was going to the front. After all, soldiers like the man had been bringing the front to so many children in the Earth Kingdom, some a lot younger than this kid. 

“He’s going to be a mail courier,” Meiling said, and the other man turned away and didn’t say another word. Mail couriers never lasted that long, but they were always on the younger side and everyone knew that they were paid extremely well. 

They didn’t get as many stares after that and the journey went relatively smoothly. It was still relatively difficult to head to the front, but the kid not making a sound did help matters. Soon enough, they were making their way to where Captain Lao’s company was settled and they were dropping off the kid. 

“Another Li,” Captain Lao sighed. “Alright, come along, kid. Barracks are that way.”

The kid wandered off and Lin and the others watched him for a moment. 

“You know of his situation?” Meiling asked. 

The captain nodded. “And I understand that you three were never here,” he said. “You better be going before you attract some eyes.”

“The Fire Lord requested that you send a message when he dies,” Lin said, since neither of the two brought it up. “And if he doesn’t, send the name of the last check-in point he was at.”

“I… understand.” Captain Lao then nodded at them and the three left. 

Cheng was quiet the entire trip back. Of course he was. He had let himself grow attached. 

&&&

They finally had a new mail courier. Li of Hira’a grabbed the letters he had wanted to send over the past few months and headed out to the ground outside the barracks. There was already a crowd gathered around the new courier, and Li couldn’t see who it was. Not that it mattered. The courier could have green skin and Li wouldn’t care, as long as his letters were delivered. 

“Alright, back up and get in a line!” roared Captain Lao and Li shuffled around with the other men until there was a line. 

“It’s an entire _kid_ ,” Li of Jang Hui told Li of Hira’a as he came back from the front of the line. “Even for a courier.”

Li of Hira’a frowned, not really understanding until he saw the courier. And Li of Jang Hui was right because the courier was _tiny_. The bag used to carry the mail was at least half his size. Li of Hira’a almost felt bad for putting his own letters in, but he stuck his letters in the _Hira’a_ labelled pouch anyways. 

When the line was finished, the kid stumbled back to the Captain’s rooms, probably to get the delivery path. It was a dangerous route, no one would lie about it, but considering the kid had gotten here without any apparent help, Li figured he would be able to do it. 

It made Li wonder just how long the kid had been carrying mail, for him to get so good. 

He shrugged and tried to put it out of his mind. The longer he thought about these things, the more and more treasonous his thoughts tended to become. 

&&&

Li of nowhere in particular was not expected to survive his journey. Captain Lao thought it a waste of his men’s letters, especially with them so hopeful that someone would be able to get them through, but it was what the Fire Lord had ordered and Lao was just a captain. 

So when Li departed, his mail bag now engineered to be strapped across his back, Lao was already drafting a small speech to tell his men that the courier had failed. It would be disheartening, but that would be all. 

Two days before the earliest time Lao could say Li had died, he received a message that the mail courier Li had arrived in Captain Min’s settlement safely and with all letters intact. Li was changing the course, though, because he had apparently found a shortcut. 

There was no input that Lao could give on this decision. He was just being informed. He put his speech back and waited for a missive saying that Li had failed to appear at the next check-in point. 

He didn’t get that message. Instead, he got messages saying that Li had arrived at his check-in points, no letters gone except for the ones he had had to pass out. Captain Lao continued to receive them until he got one stating very simply that Li had reached his destination and would be traveling further north along the front. 

Which meant that Lao would receive no further messages about Li, unless he were to come back and start a route here again. 

Which meant that he would probably never know if Li died. 

Which meant that he would have to write to the Fire Lord saying that Li hadn’t died. And if the Fire Lord got that message, no doubt another captain would be informed of Li’s situation, and the boy’s routes would become even more dangerous until he had no choice but to fail. Maybe the next captain would be the one to end things directly, instead of waiting for Li to get caught in the crossfire of a battle or by the Earth Kingdom.

It made Captain Lao feel dirty, being complicit in a kid’s death, but he was under orders. He couldn't just disobey them. 

Or could he? Lao wasn’t sure what the kid’s family had done to receive a slow death sentence, but the kid couldn’t be at fault. 

But telling the Fire Lord he wasn’t dead would be a mercy. The sooner the kid died, the less time he had to suffer. 

At the same time, Lao’s mind reminded him that couriers had a chance to retire. Couriers had a higher salary. Couriers, more than soldiers, had a chance of coming out of the war with something more than trauma. 

Captain Lao thought of his nephew. The kid was four, which was much, much younger than Li, but Lao thought about him all the same. 

He started to write. 

&&&

Mother was crying inconsolably and Azula still hadn’t gotten the reason why. She felt she deserved one, since Mother was hugging her too tightly and was using her head as something to cry on. Mother, eventually, stopped and left the room, not even taking Azula with her. 

Of course she hadn’t. She had only wanted Azula in the moment to use her. 

_Well_ , Azula thought, grabbing at the letter Mother had thrown away just as the tears had started to come down, _I can use her too._

The letter was short, and it was simple. 

_Zuko, son of Princess Ursa and Prince Ozai, is dead. His body has been cremated._

Azula stared at the letter for a long time. She read it over and over, frowning and trying to see if this was perhaps the first time she made a mistake. 

_Zuko_ —but not _Prince_ Zuko because for some reason, that title had been taken away. Azula would normally be poking fun at him for it, except he wasn’t here and she didn’t even know why he was no longer a prince— _son of Princess Ursa and Prince Ozai_ —it was really funny how always when it came to Zuko, Mother was first— _is dead_ —but how could Zuko be dead? Azula knew her father had to kill him, but her father _hadn’t_ and besides, she had seen Zuko come out of a fall from the roof with only a few bruises. Her brother was weak, but he was also tough. He couldn’t have died— _his body has been cremated_ —and now she would never really know what did it, because no one ever told her anything and the body was gone, so she couldn’t examine it. 

Azula read it once again. 

So she hadn’t made a mistake. Azula put the letter back down where she found it and walked quietly to her room. The servants avoided her but she didn’t take the same pleasure from their fear this time. 

Inside, she rummaged around in her cabinet for a moment. Zuko’s room had been cleared out a while ago, but before everything had been taken and thrown out, she had managed to take that knife Uncle sent him. 

_Never give up without a fight_ was what it said. Azula wondered what Uncle was thinking when he sent it. 

He wanted to teach Zuko a lesson, she figured. But if there was one lesson Zuko had needed to learn, it was _always adapt to your situation_. 

Zuko had always never given up without a fight. The problem with him was that he never knew _how_ to fight. He would be bold when he should have been subtle, and quiet when he should have been loud. 

Azula examined the knife again and almost laughed. It was funny to think that she had been so mad that Uncle had got her a gift that didn’t suit her at all and had gotten a much better present for Zuko. 

But, if he had put no thought into Azula’s present, he probably only put the tiniest bit into Zuko’s.

Not that it mattered anymore. Zuko was dead. He wouldn’t be fighting anymore. 

Her stomach flipped and she wondered if something had been wrong with dinner. Maybe Zuko had been poisoned from a meal and Azula was going to die too. Not that she would die if she was poisoned. Zuko may have been tough, but Azula was stronger.

Like now. Zuko wouldn’t have dared to play with the knife, but here Azula was, twisting it around and throwing it through the air. Zuko would have never done that. He would have failed to get her to stop and then run to the turtleduck pond. 

Azula caught the knife one final time and frowned as her feet started to take her on a familiar path. Then she shrugged, because there wasn’t anything else to do now and there was nowhere else to go. 

The turtleducks, like the servants, fled when they saw her, but she, like with the servants, didn’t take the same pleasure in watching them do so. She didn’t even chase them, only fueling her feelings into her fire and onto the stupid blade in her hands. 

The orange flames were too weak, she noted with dissatisfaction. They flickered and the knife grew hot, but they didn’t burn or melt the metal. 

If Zuko was here, she would hide it where he would pick it up, and then he would yell about the heat. And then Azula would say that he was a _firebender_ , the heat shouldn’t bother him, and Zuko would probably run to Mother about it. 

But Zuko wasn’t here anymore, because Zuko was dead. 

She looked at her flames for a long time and didn’t notice the gradient they went through, turning from orange to yellow to a light green and finally, to blue. The only thing she noticed was how the metal became soft, and how it dripped through her fingers and down onto the ground. 

She stared at the now cooling lumps, and went back inside. 

Azula noted with a detached mind that Mother was still crying. 

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, if you enjoyed, please leave kudos/comments! This is a part of a series, so you'll see more of Mail Courier Zuko, but it'll take me a while to update, because I need to figure out exactly where the next part will start. Also, I'm pretty sure that Zuko wasn't eight when the whole "azulon tells ozai to kill zuko" thing happened, but by the time I realized that, a bit too much hinged on him being that young. So. Oops.
> 
> As always, if you see a typo or anything of the like, feel free to let me know and I hope you all are doing well.


End file.
